


The Loneliest Star In The Universe

by Darkest_Sun



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, and i swear i will write a final chapter to make it better because i can't leave her like this, but it works as a good complete standalone right now, i am very certain that there will be more because i've half written a second chapter, i thought about Lucretia alone and made myself sad, set before Here There Be Gerblins, so i wrote about Lucretia thinking about being alone and made her sad too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 00:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkest_Sun/pseuds/Darkest_Sun
Summary: Lucretia clings to all the strength she never knew she had and wished she didn't need, and remembers her family's hope for this planet.They can be together and stop running, she just has to keep going.No matter how impossibly alone she feels.(It won't be a long fic but I'll give this a happy ending, I swear)





	1. Chapter 1

Lucretia sat in her office, head in her hands.

Even for all the effort spent to try and save this world so like their own, for all the good people she now knew here, for the chance to finally finish their century long race to nowhere… 

For all that, this was still by far her least favourite cycle.

Behind her sat a painting of her favourite; all of them together on a beach in the sun. Their eyes much lighter than usual - lighter than they’d been in the cycles before, and much lighter than they would grow in the decades following.

But even in that cycle, they were never totally free of that hunted look that slowly chipped away at their smiles, and slid darkness into their eyes and into their dreams.

Before the painting had been hidden away to sit in a quiet office, it had sat in the main room of their ship; seen and loved and appreciated. 

Now it was covered. Now even this image of her family had been hidden; and within the frame she saw only herself, alone and old, carrying the weight of all their mistakes.

Her family's eyes, the last time she had seen them, had lost their hunted look at last. They had lost everything except a glazed, peaceful look as she took them to their new homes.

One of them never recovered from that look, and still stares at her. Never any accusation in those small blue eyes, but she cannot help but feel accused anyway every time she meets his empty gaze.

But she had done what she had to. And now... now she was the only person in the universe whose eyes contained some of that infinite darkness.

They had escaped every time, but she felt heavier every year they left another world behind to die.

This was her least favourite cycle.

But it was also the only cycle she truly had hope.

Which was why it had hurt so much to watch the others lose it. 

The more their relics destroyed the world they hoped to save, the longer Lup was gone... the more that light had faded from her family's eyes and left them darker than ever before. Darker even than the first few days after leaving a thriving world to be consumed as they flew into the empty sky; always running with no true destination. 

Their bodies may have reset, but their souls had not.

The price for an end to their running was too high. And now Lucretia paid that price on her own - better than letting so many thousands pay it for them. 

Surely, this was better.

Now she was the only person in the world who still carried the hope they'd all started this cycle with. She was the only one who knew how much this world needed that hope; who saw the darkness it needed saving from, each night in her dreams.

But she could carry that small kernel of hope for however long it took, keep it safe up here on her base orbiting this almost-doomed planet, and then the world would be safe.

And then she would have her family back.

They had been trying to find a way to stop running for a _century_ , she could last a few more years. She had to.

She could carry this for however long it took.

She hoped it wouldn't be too much longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Seeing them again was so much better and so much worse than she had imagined.

Lucretia had prepared herself for it with all the fervor of someone who knows they will never be ready, can never be ready. 

Who could possibly be ready to see their family look at them without recognition? With their walls up, as if she didn’t know the way they drank their coffee, the way they looked after four nights without sleep, the way they told a joke they could barely get through without laughing?

Who could be prepared to look at their family, and know more about them than they knew themselves?

Not her, certainly. But at least she had known it was coming.

The worst parts, as made sense in hindsight, were the parts she didn’t expect.

For all her inability to prepare herself for the lack of recognition, the disinterest, the ways they would be different and unknown to her for the first time in a hundred years… there’s still something to be said for a hard punch to the gut that you have time to see coming.

Lucretia saw in their familiar eyes a kind of pain that she understood well, but not one that had been there for most of the time she had known them.

She saw loneliness.

Hidden, but not to someone who knew them, and covered with possibly the very worst of themselves; Taako’s indifference, Merle’s abrasiveness, and Magnus’ almost toxic recklessness. 

It was less bearable than their older, stranger selves.

They had felt many awful things since starting their journey, but it had been a long time since any of them were lonely.

She had thought, both in the terrible year of the stone judges and now, that she was sparing her family this one thing; that she could be the one to bear that loneliness. For them and for everyone.

Still tensing for the punches she could, the pain in her family’s eyes had slipped through her defences. How could she prepare for what should never have been?

She had done all this as much for her family as for this world. And she hadn’t even managed to give them a few years of happiness.

\------

She couldn’t say whether the differences hurt more than the ways it was _almost_ the same.

When the boys started joking and laughing together, derailing important conversations and trying their best to make everyone else uncomfortable, it felt so familiar Lucretia wanted to scream.

But if she had nothing else - and some days it certainly felt that way - she had her hard-earned composure.

Being on the outside of their jokes, kept on the other side of an invisible line between her and her family was exactly as sharp and jagged as she’d expected.

Yet again, she wanted to curse herself for a fool; feeling far younger than she looked even though she was still decades older inside.

Because she still thought she could _prepare,_ that she was _safe_ on the outside. 

The only thing worse than being kept on the outside by people you know down to their very souls, Lucretia found out, was when they try to bring you in.

She only realised that she’d let herself grow used to their new dynamic, let herself stop tensing for the unknown strike, when it changed. Foolish.

Being kept on the outside had helped her keep one more barrier between them and her; between her past self and who she had to be now.

The discomfort still slid over her skin when they treated her with… well, not respect, of course, but still as an authority figure - someone older and wiser, someone with power and gravitas.

But it didn’t leave her hollow in the same way as Merle trying to connect with her, sharing his false life and leaving the lines blurred as he switched between the person she knew and the stranger next to her.

Hearing Merle talk about faith and finding that the depths of his stubborn optimism were still there threw her decades into the past, to any number of times when his unexpectedly profound words had stayed with her when she needed them.

Yet she couldn’t help but think he was still only shades of the person he used to be, and she knew whose fault that was.

He was still kind enough to try and befriend someone he saw staying apart from the people around her. A pity this kindness was yet another thing she hadn’t seen coming, and only served to remind her of how much she had lost.

For all that her attempts to prepare herself had not saved her from punch after punch, it had still saved her in the end.

Because she was sure, beyond any doubt, that while she could hold onto her composure tighter than she held onto her white oak staff, her grip would have failed her if she’d had to hear them call her by her name.

She could not hear the first real family she’d ever had speak her name like it was new, try out all the nicknames they had already called her for decades.

Having her name revealed on Candlenights had shaken her more than almost anything else, and she’d made sure no one laboured under the impression that they could call her that now.

So she was glad that she had cloaked herself so thoroughly in Madame Director, because it was one more thing she could draw on to remind herself why things were different.

Maybe when this was all over, she could be Lucretia again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had more feelings about Lucretia.
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought, even if you're just mad at me for all the angst.


End file.
